It's understandable that the world's elite news media failed to capture the essence of who Pope Francis is, given their dogged determination to always be ahead of the narrative. One can find a representative sample of the approach taken in the New York Times piece by Rachel Donadio from July of last year, "On Gay Priests, Pope Francis Asks, ‘Who Am I to Judge?’" Who can blame them for failing to understand a personality such as his — compassionate, humble, and yet with firm convictions regarding the difference between truth and falsehood, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, wisdom and folly, material and spiritual, timeless and ephemeral. One must travel far and wide to find such a combination in a world leader these days. Even Catholic journalists found him confusing, although one can come across the occasionally balanced perspective, such as that of Colleen Carroll Campbell in her piece "God and Mammon". And as the English poet, Alexander Pope, noted, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." It matters not the provenance of that hope.